


ASStober prompts

by Theluminousfisheffect



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Anxiety, Blood and Injury, Death, Drowning, Gore, Implied stabbing (past), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Misgendering, Panic, Past Violence, Possession, Swearing, Violence, only slightly in the beginning (up to the page break), suffocating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26800273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theluminousfisheffect/pseuds/Theluminousfisheffect
Summary: Listen, I didn't name this thing, okay?  We're just working with what we got here.  And what we've got is a list of Halloween prompts. Scary Halloween, to be precise (but I will try not to take anything too far, even at that).  So I hope you enjoy whatever I come up with for all of these.And we'll see how I do with the scariest bit of all.  Deadlines.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Reaper/Folklore

**Author's Note:**

> The first prompt was Reaper/Folklore so I chose a banshee because that's almost like both of them together. For anyone who doesn't know, a banshee is basically a female spirit that appears to people and wails, signalling that someone in that household is going to die. The banshee doesn't actually do the killing though - they just signal that it's coming. There are so many different versions of what they look like and what their screams actually sound like and where they come from. I've gone with the 'young girl died tragically' version for their origins in this one but there are plenty of variations on that theme. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you like it. I don't think it gets very scary but read the warnings first just to be sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags relevant to this chapter: Misgendering, implied/referenced character death, blood and injury, implied stabbing (past), past violence, swearing

“She’s quare nippy the night.”  


“Aye, yeah. Well, it’s the middle of October in Ireland. It’s not going to be much else, now is it?” they answered with a cheeky grin, pulling the collar of their coat up higher around the back of their neck to protect it from the chill.  


“Ah, you’re not wrong, lass,” the old man nodded, moving his hands down to his splayed knees to support himself against the windowsill he was perched on. “You be careful walking home now. Young thing like you shouldn’t be out alone at night.”  


“Maybe not with ones like you around anyway,” they thought, shoving their hands deeper into their pockets to find their keys, just in case. The man didn’t seem like he’d be much of a threat – he was so drunk that he was almost swaying even sitting down. He probably couldn’t move fast enough to catch them if it came to that but better safe than sorry.  


“I’m just up the road anyway. Not far to get home now,” they said instead, bouncing on the balls of their feet to keep themselves warm. Their shoulders hunched a little around their ears, pushing their woollen scarf higher so they could bury their chin into it.  


“Well, go on then, love. You’d better be off home before your mother worries herself to death over you.”  


“Aye, I won’t keep her waiting,” they said, not bothering to tell him that they hadn’t lived with their mother in years now. “Night,” they called, risking one hand to the cold to wave to the man amiably.  


“You be careful, lass.”  


“I will.”

  


* * *

  


Why the fuck had they thought ripped jeans would be a good idea? They were freezing walking home – this wasn’t bloody mainland Europe. And they had the circulation of an 80-year-old, to top it all off.  


_Cold hands, warm heart._ That’s what they’d always been told.  


Yeah, well, their heart must be the fucking sun. Their fingers were going to fall off at this rate.  


They pulled their beanie down further over their ears, careful not to knock out their earphones. Sure, it wasn’t too far to home now and then they could make some tea and camp out under a blanket for the rest of the night. The few drinks they’d had in the bar with Conor hadn’t done enough to insulate them against the cold, but tea would fix any and all problems in life.  


They walked further down the narrow country lane; hands deep in their pockets. There were no streetlights to cast the orange glow that shrouded the town, but it didn’t matter. The moon was so bright that they could see the silhouettes of everything around them, caught in the dazzling white light. Plus no one else was mad enough to be out at this time around here, except maybe the farmers so it wasn’t like they really needed to be seen to avoid being run over anyway.  


They had just rounded the last corner to their road, humming away to Britney since no one was around to hear them struggling to hit the high notes and they were pretty sure the cows didn’t give a shit how tone deaf you were, when they saw a shadow flicker out of the corner of their eye. Instinct more than anything else made them whirl around, expecting to see a cat or something darting between hedges. What they hadn’t expected at all was to find another person standing there, halfway between them and the bottom of what they had thought had been an empty road.  


They flinched back and then righted themselves embarrassedly, huffing out a tiny laugh and lifted a hand in an awkward wave. “Sorry, you scared the shit out of me. Didn’t think anyone else was here.”  


The person didn’t answer. They squinted into the darkness and stepped a bit closer. “Hey, uh, are you okay? Are you looking for a house or something? There’s not too many of them out this way.”  


The person still said nothing but dropped their head into their hands and started sobbing in huge, gasping breaths that shook their whole body. Their eyes widened. Shit. What were they supposed to do with a crying stranger?  


“Hey, hey now, it’s okay,” they said, reaching a hand out to them carefully as they continued to step closer. “Did something happen? Did – did someone try to hurt you or something? Are you lost?”  


Honestly, they had no idea what anyone would be doing out here at this time of night, but the poor thing sounded exhausted. They continued to weep loudly, hunched over on themselves where they stood in the middle of the road and they didn’t know what to do. They were in no state to talk, God love them.  


“I’m gonna turn on my phone light, okay?” they said gently, reaching into their pocket. “No good us both standing here in the dark and not being able to see each other’s faces.” And maybe it would give them a chance to see if they were injured or not.  


They slipped their phone out of their pocket and fumbled to get the light on for a few seconds before they were blinded by the sudden, intense blue-white. “Ow, fuck, my eyes,” they muttered, dropping the light a bit lower so they didn’t accidentally blind the stranger too. “Okay, there we go,” they blinked a few times until their eyes adjusted to the new light level and lifted the phone again to the stranger’s stomach. “That’s be-ehhter – holy Mary, mother of God, what happened to you?”  


The stranger looked like they had just stepped out of the grimmest fairy tale. They were wearing a dark green cloak, like Red Riding Hood’s long-lost Irish cousin, with the hood pulled up over their short, brown hair. Underneath, they had a white dress that fell ramrod straight down to their shins and no shoes. Through the open front of the cloak, they could see huge blood stains, rusted brown and saturated across the stomach of the dress.  


“Holy shit, how are you even walking?” they said, their mouth turning dry at the sight of the blood. How did they get here? And how in God’s name were they still alive, never mind standing up on their own? “Okay, I’m going to call an ambulance, okay? Just – just try to hang on until they get here.”  


The stranger lifted their head from their hands just as they looked down at their phone to unlock it and wailed, louder than before, loud enough to rip their throat out if they weren’t careful. 

Their head snapped back up at the sound and their fingers froze in place. They didn’t know what made them do it but slowly, they tilted their phone back in their hands, raising the light to the stranger’s face.  


Their eyes were red.  


Bloodshot.  


Like they had been crying forever.  


They didn’t have time to work through that little piece of information before the stranger wailed again, harsh and unhuman, like fingernails scratching at glass panes and so bloody loud that it actually hurt. They winced and covered their ears with a hiss of pain, even as their blood ran cold. That sound was definitely not a person. Absolutely, one hundred percent not a fucking human. At least, not anymore. No human could make that kind of noise and no one could have lost that much blood and not be dead.  


They turned and bolted.  


They almost tripped over their feet as they span around and ran and ran towards their house. Their heart was pounding so hard that they could feel it battering against the inside of their ribcage, like a wounded animal throwing itself at the bars of its prison. They couldn’t hear their own laboured breathing over the keens and shrieks behind them. Each noise sent another icy dagger through their chest and they didn’t seem to be getting any further away.  


They didn’t stop to see if they were still being followed. Every atom in their body screamed for them to get inside and they were not about to argue. They fumbled in their pocket to find their keys as they ran and cursed under their breath as they almost fell from their grasp. They clutched onto the keys harder, digging the metal teeth into their palm but they didn’t feel a thing. The wails were still right behind them.  


They ran around the side of the house, praying that they could get the key in quickly in the dark. They were too panicked, trying to move too hastily, blindly stabbing the key at the lock. 

“Please, _please_ , just fucking work!” they pleaded, feeling hot tears springing into the corners of their eyes. They didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not at their own back door with the key in their hand, just half a second too slow. “ _Please God, fucking let me in!_ ”  


The key finally, mercifully, slipped into place. They turned it manically and threw the door open, scrambling inside and slammed it shut behind them, hard enough that the internal kitchen door behind them shook in its frame. They locked it again and slid to the floor breathlessly, back pressed tight against the hard wood and knees tucked in as close as they could get, making themselves as small as possible in the darkness of their kitchen. The moon was on the other side of the house so there was almost no light getting through the window, which was good. If that thing followed them back, maybe it wouldn’t be able to see them. But then again, it was dead, probably, so maybe it could just fucking walk through doors anyway?  


They hugged their knees closer, constricting their chest and clamped a hand over their mouth as they made a pathetic little sound. Shit. They were breathing too loudly. It was going to hear them. Should they grab a knife? Would that even do any good? It looked like someone had already stabbed that thing twenty times over. Would that stop it? Would it even hurt it? God, their heart was going to give out on their own kitchen floor and wasn’t that just truly pathetic? Dead before thirty. They could hear everyone now.  


_Only the good die young._   


Fuck that bullshit.  


They didn’t have to strain their ears much to know that thing was still out there, wailing like a banshee.  


…A banshee.  


A fucking _banshee_.  


This couldn’t be real, could it?  


They felt their heart stutter as the word passed through their brain and their hand fell limply away from their mouth. A banshee was a literal death sentence. It meant someone was going to die and there was nothing you or anyone else could do about it. At least, according to the stories, which were suddenly proving a hell of a lot more accurate than they had ever thought before. And they had just seen her. And that blood – someone must have actually stabbed her at some point then.  


They felt bile rise in their throat. Some poor wee girl –  


They shut their eyes and dropped their head back defeatedly against the door with a thud. Their chest heaved with every pant and their eyes burned with unshed tears. Their lips were numb and their fingers felt frozen. A banshee couldn’t hurt you itself, but it meant you were as good as dead.  


“Shite,” they whispered, laughing humourlessly as they dropped their head hopelessly into their hands.


	2. Summon/Scream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This prompt was summon/scream. This is both, I guess and was definitely, 100%, absolutely done on purpose to mix both words in there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags relevant to this chapter: Violence, blood and injury, suffocation, drowning, swearing, anxiety, panic, death, gore, possession

“Callan, don’t do it,” Raphael begged. “It’s corrupted. Don’t.”  


“What else are we going to do, Raph? We’re getting our asses handed to us!” he yelled back, dodging left as Raphael went right.  


“Don’t! We can win this without it!”  


“Callan!”  


“Cami, look out!”  


“ _Shit._ ”  


“Raphael, we’re going to die here if I don’t.”  


“And you might die if you do! My love, please, listen to me.”  


“I have to,” Callan said plaintively, though his heart stuttered in his chest as the decision cemented itself in his mind. “That thing isn’t scared of us. It knows it can take us. I have to show it that it’s wrong.”  


“No, Callan, _don’t!_ ” Raphael shouted, reaching out to his boyfriend desperately. He was cut off by huge purple spears piercing up through the ground between them. He pulled his hand back, hissing as the mist rolling off them burned across his fingertips like acid. How were they supposed to fight a ghoul when they couldn’t even touch it?  


Callan flinched back and crouched down low, turning to face it again. He didn’t have a choice; they were losing hard and didn’t stand a chance without it. They had barely managed to put a scratch on the ghoul and they were already starting to lag. It wouldn’t be long until somebody made a stupid mistake and they were all screwed.  


He stood up straighter, hands fisted at his sides. He took a deep breath and held it for a second – after all, it might very well be his last - and let his body go cold.  


It felt like he had stepped out into the void of space; every atom of his being instantly frozen, every ounce of oxygen stolen from his lungs as the thousand tiny white hands clawed their way up his throat. They ripped and tore at the inside of his oesophagus, forcing their way brutally out through his mouth and nose. He was choking on them.  


He didn’t remember it being so vicious the last time. Maybe it was scared that this was its last chance too.  


The white mist descended over his eyes, blotting out his vision and the world faded away around him. He couldn’t see anything; he had no idea where the ghoul had gone. He just had to hope that the creature wouldn’t aim for his friends while he couldn’t see to avoid them.  


Callan’s lungs burned with ice as it continued to steal his breath. His jaw ached but he couldn’t close his mouth to ease the pain, not while it was still pouring from between his lips like blood from a gaping wound. How long could he stay like this before he suffocated? Could he die like this? He felt like he was dying. His arms and legs were numb. Was his heart still beating? He couldn’t hear it but then, he couldn’t hear anything anymore except the roaring of water rushing past his ears. The white mist was everywhere – once Callan gave it control, he couldn’t tell where it started and ended. It was all consuming, as infinite as the Universe itself and as much a part of him as anything else. Or maybe he was a part of it. It became impossible to tell.  


Time seemed to drag on forever like this, each second a lifetime, each minute long enough to birth galaxies. He could taste the tang of blood dripping down his tongue towards his throat and squeezed his eyes shut, wishing that he didn’t intimately know what it tasted like. Or maybe he just wished he knew whose it was. If he was lucky, it was his own. He didn’t want to think about if he wasn’t. It ran down in thick rivulets, slowly coating his throat and filling his stomach and he thought desperately that he would probably be choking on it if he could only remember how to breathe, but the mist was still cracking his jaw open wide and clogging his airways like tar and he was definitely dying.  


Callan tried to reach out desperately to rein it back in – this was nothing like the last time; this was cruel and hungry and vengeful and it was murdering him from the inside out - but something sharp seared through his veins, not quite electric and not quite fiery, but aching all the same. He whimpered wordlessly and tried again, urging his fingers to curl from where they were forcefully splayed out. The pain shot through him again, biting and more aggressive than before. It was not giving in easily. Callan squeezed his hands and curled his toes but it was as useless as shoving at a mountain and the more he struggled against it, the more he felt like his blood was being evaporated and his ribs were being ground to dust and this was torture and Callan was screaming and screaming but there was no sound, except for the awful rushing water and he was dying, he was dying and maybe he had killed all of his friends already and they were all dead too and maybe he deserved it if he was dying because Raphael had told him not to and Raphael was right and he was an idiot.  


Callan’s knees gave out from under him and he lurched forward unexpectedly, skinning them against the stone floor. His hands caught him instinctively before he broke his teeth or his nose on the granite. He gasped for air like a drowning man but it caught on the blood congesting his system. His whole body heaved as he coughed violently and quickly gave way to retching instead as his body tried to rid itself of the pollutants.  


He gagged again on the globs of blood as they passed from his throat to the floor and then suddenly, the cool stone was gone from beneath his sweaty palms as he was pulled up and to his right, cradled against someone’s chest like a child.  


“Shh, there you are, love. That’s it. Just keep breathing,” Raphael coached him gently, carding his hand through his hair to pull the long strands away from his eyes. “You’re okay now. I’ve got you now, dear heart. Just keep breathing for me.”  


Callan blinked, desperate to listen to Raphael but his lungs weren’t cooperating with him. He sucked a shaky breath between his teeth and trembled as he breathed it back out in a soft hiss. His heart was beating like war drums in his ears, echoing over the hills and nothing was real except for the sound and Raphael’s hands in his hair.  


“Raph, let me see his face a sec,” Cami said, bending down on her hunkers in front of them. Callan’s grey eyes followed her hand wordlessly as she gently swiped an old rag over his mouth and his nose, wiping away the scarlet trails. “There. Now he looks a bit less like someone just broke his nose.” Callan couldn’t remember why that mattered but he was grateful that it was gone all the same.  


“We should get out of here,” Noah spoke up behind them. “Cal, can you walk?”  


“He’s shaking, Noah,” Raphael narrowed his eyes. “Can’t you give him a minute?”  


“We don’t have a minute. The only thing keeping any other ghouls away from here was Cal and now he’s gone back to normal, who knows how much time we have?”  


“It’s morning, Noah,” Pen rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulder roughly. “None of them are going to be out now. Give them a minute.”  


Morning?  


Callan’s eyebrows furrowed slightly as the words sank through the haze and he pushed himself away from Raphael’s chest and did his best to glare up at him, but the other man smiled so softly and brushed his hair back again.  


“Yes, I know,” he murmured. “We couldn’t get you to change back, darling. We had to keep you distracted until you managed yourself.” Raphael eased him back against his chest, supporting most of his weight and Callan took another uneasy breath. His lungs wouldn’t seem to expand far enough to let him keep the precious air he managed to draw in and maybe he wasn’t quite out of danger yet, even with the creature gone back to wherever it stayed.  


“Well, I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to hit my bed,” Cami stretched her arms above her head, pressing her curls in for a second against her head. “I am beat.”  


“I’ll carry you,” Raphael said, already moving to slide his arms under Callan’s legs and one around his back. Callan clung to his shirt and glared harder but Raphael just chuckled and pressed a kiss to the top of his head as he lifted him carefully. “I know you hate this but you’re shaking. I’ll let you walk in a bit, okay?”  


That brought a pout out of him but he held on steadfastly to his boyfriend’s shirt and kept working on his breathing.  


“Hey Raph, wanna carry me too? I bet you could give me a piggyback!” Pen teased as she skipped up alongside them.  


“No, you can walk.”  


Callan’s head turned towards the movement and he stopped breathing again. Behind Pen, he caught sight of the mutilated body of the ghoul, though it would have been fairly generous to call what was left a body. It looked like it had been ravaged by wolves; there was blood splattered in oceans of sickening stains across the floor, huge lumps of torn flesh dotted amongst it like rocks breaking the surface, bones protruded from the shredded remains like ship wreckage and Callan felt his stomach turn again.  


“Don’t look at it,” Raphael told him softly, angling himself so that the massacre wasn’t in Callan’s line of sight. “You saved us. That’s what matters.”  


But Callan couldn’t help but think, looking at it, that the ghoul wasn’t the only monster left in that room.


End file.
